3-26-2008 Some states—even those who have signed up to an extradition treaty with the UK—routinely refuse to return their own citizens to face justice abroad. Examples of these include Russia which says that its constitution forbids it from returning Andrei Lugovoi, wanted for the poison-murder of dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London.

And even though Austria has signed up to the European Arrest Warrant, it still declines to return native Austrians to other countries--preferring instead to try them at home. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/7312853.stm

1-31-2013 Meng, Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, served on the board of Hong Kong-based Skycom Tech Co Ltd between February 2008 and April 2009, according to Skycom records filed with Hong Kong’s Companies Registry.

Reuters reported last month that in late 2010, Skycom’s office in Tehran offered to sell at least 1.3 million euros worth of HP gear to Mobile Telecommunication Co of Iran, despite U.S. trade sanctions. At least 13 pages of the proposal were marked “Huawei confidential” and carried Huawei’s logo. Huawei said neither it nor Skycom ultimately provided the HP equipment; HP said it prohibits the sale of its products to Iran.Huawei has described Skycom as one of its “major local partners.” But a review by Reuters of corporate records and other documents found numerous financial and other links over the past decade between Huawei, Meng and Skycom, suggesting a closer relationship between the two firms. In 2007, for instance, a management company controlled by Huawei’s parent company held all of Skycom’s shares. At the time Meng served as the management firm’s company secretary. https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-skycom/exclusive-huawei-cfo-linked-to-firm-that-offered-hp-gear-to-iran-idUSBRE90U0CC20130131................................................................................................................

6-1-17 BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Thursday hailed the first extradition of a fugitive suspect from the United States under the Trump administration as a “major achievement” resulting from talks between the two countries’ leaders in April.

The suspect, only identified by his surname Zhu, was shown on live national television stepping off a United Airlines flight at Beijing airport flanked by two Chinese police officers, his head covered with a black hood.

The Ministry of Public Security said in a statement Zhu was suspected of crimes involving the “violation of personal rights”….

Zhu’s case was a “major achievement” and “model example” of the greater cross-border law enforcement cooperation agreed upon during April’s summit at Mar-a-Lago between U.S President Donald Trump and Party Chairman Xi, the Ministry of Public Security said. That meeting of minds, it said, would enable “next steps” to be taken to strengthen cooperation in areas including cyber security and cross-border law enforcement.

The United States extradited businessman Yang Jinjun in September 2015 to face bribery and graft charges, while China’s most-wanted corruption suspect, Yang Xiuzhu, voluntarily returned from the United States in November last year.

In April, China asked Interpol to issue a “red notice” for Guo Wengui, a billionaire businessman who lives in New York who has made corruption allegations against senior Communist Party leaders and their families. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-usa-crime/china-hails-first-fugitive-extradition-from-u-s-under-trump-idUSKBN18S4L6

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9-27-17 Chinese President Xi Jinping opened the International Police Organization (Interpol) general assembly in Beijing on Tuesday to hundreds of participants from 156 countries, including the U.S. Also on Tuesday China's state-run Xinhua News Agencyreported that Interpol, the global police cooperation agency, is collaborating with Chinese authorities in over 3,000 investigations around the world each year. Last year, China issued 612 "red notices"--alerts seeking the extradition of accused criminals abroad--leading to 17 extraditions.

Just one day before Xi's speech international advocacy group Human Rights Watch issued a statement calling on Interpol to address what it charges is China's abuse of the red notice system. …Over a decade ago China issued a red notice against

Dolkun Isa, a Germany-based advocate for the rights of China's beleaguered ethnic Uyghurs. In the U.S., China has issued a red notice against Wang Zaigang, who has advocated for democracy in the People's Republic. Authorities in their current countries of residence have not acted on the red notices in either case, but traveling abroad with a red notice comes with great uncertainty. https://psmag.com/news/is-china-using-interpol-to-try-to-bring-back-political-dissidents-from-the-u-s

Jan. 19, 2018 (UPI) May and Macron agreed to the creation of a two-country defense council in which French and British defense ministers’ (issues) can be discussed; Britain, although it is leaving the European Union, will support the proposed European Intervention Initiative, a cooperative defense framework to improve operational planning of military deployments separate from NATO, EU and the JEF, or Young European Federalist organization, a pan-Europe movement.

The two leaders also confirmed that a Combined Joint Expeditionary Force, a unified British-French deployable military command, will be ready by 2020.

2-2-2018 The U.S. military is developing a ground-launched, intermediate-range cruise missile to counter a similar Russian weapon whose deployment violates an arms-control treaty between Moscow and Washington, U.S. officials said Friday.

Many of the changes are meant to counter Russia’s nuclear weapons development. That includes the new ground-launched cruise missile, said Greg Weaver, the Joint Staff’s deputy director of strategic capabilities.

“We need to demonstrate to the Russians that we’re serious about them coming back into compliance with INF and that perhaps they need to be reminded why they signed the INF treaty in the first place,” Weaver told reporters….

Robert Soofer (shown), deputy assistant secretary for nuclear and missile defense policy: “We remain receptive to future arms control negotiations if conditions permit,” Soofer said. “Of course you need to have a willing partner to talk and it would be nice if that partner was in compliance with their existing arms control [commitments]. If there’s an opportunity, we will engage.”

Asked how he thought the Russians would respond to the review, Soofer said “I’m sure they won’t respond well. The only way to get their attention, the only way to get them to come back to the negotiating table, is to start deploying these capabilities.”

10-15-2018 In July NATO members agreed in the Brussels Summit Declaration that the ‘most plausible’ explanation of the situation was indeed that Moscow has developed a ground-launched cruise missile with a range exceeding the lower INF threshold:

After years of denials and obfuscation, and despite Allies repeatedly raising their concerns, the Russian Federation only recently acknowledged the existence of the missile system without providing the necessary transparency or explanation. A pattern of behaviour and information over many years has led to widespread doubts about Russian compliance. Allies believe that, in the absence of any credible answer from Russia on this new missile, the most plausible assessment would be that Russia is in violation of the Treaty.

The United States’ concern is over a cruise missile it designated the SSC-8, which has the NATO codename Screwdriver and is associated with the Russian designation 9M729. The INF Treaty bans US or Russian ground-launched ballistic- and cruise-missile systems with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. The SSC-8 likely has a range in the order of 2,000 km, and may well have already been deployed with at least one Russian missile battalion in the Ekaterinburg region….

Moscow has also thrown a variety of counter-claims at the US with regard to how some US unmanned systems could be viewed as a technical breach, and that the Mk41 vertical-launch cells of the Aegis Ashore system intended for missile defence could also be used to house Tomahawk cruise missiles….

The INF was a bilateral treaty signed by the Soviet Union and the US in 1987. The SSC-8, which is likely capable of being armed with conventional and nuclear warheads, would put most of Western Europe including the United Kingdom within range. The missile is most probably a ground-launched version of the Novator 3M14 Kalibr (SS-N-30A) naval land-attack cruise missile, which has an estimated range of up to 2,500 km. A shorter-range version of this missile likely corresponds to the 9M728 (SSC-7) cruise missile that is part of the Russian Iskander-M tactical missile system. The Iskander-M uses both ballistic and cruise missiles, the ranges of which fall below the minimum INF threshold.

12-9-2018 between January and July, Chinese companies invested $65 billion in 4,000 foreign companies in 152 countries and regions around the world, which is 14% more than the number for the last year.

However none of these funds reached Russia. According to the Central Bank of Russia the outflow of Chinese investments has continued for four consecutive quarters, and the current amount is only two-thirds of what it was before the annexation of the Crimea ($4.54 billion).

The major Russian-Chinese investment projects that were trumpeted in the past have all come to nothing. The idea of selling the Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC a share in Rosneft fell through when CEFC’s director Ye Jianming was arrested on charges of economic crimes. The project to build the “Eurasia” high-speed railway line from Beijing through Moscow to Berlin was declared unprofitable.